Flutterings

In Paris through 19 May: TeZukA, "a fusion of comic strip and contemporary dance" honoring the creator of Astro Boy.

http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/in-paris-honoring-the-god-of-manga-in-dance/

ETA: also in Paris (through 21 May), a large (400 works!) Art Spiegelman show at Centre Pompidou. And in yesterday's NYT op-ed section, Spiegelman is among the contributors of illustrations paying tribute to Sendak.

* Coming across Spanish scanlations of the extras from the Japanese reissues of FAKE. Now if I could only find a reputable North American source for the licensed Spanish editions. (I'm steering clear of alibris.)

* Ryotaro Iwanaga's Pumpkin Scissors: Imperial Army State Section III. The manga is up to nine or ten volumes in Japan, with four volumes translated into English so far; I borrowed the first three from my local library and devoured them this afternoon. I am impressed by Del Rey/Ballantine/Kodansha's efforts: the first volume includes a good guide about Japanese honorifics, and each volume includes some translation notes at the end, where Ikoi Hiroe notes several spots where different choices could have been made, or provides additional cultural context.

Also, it has several kickass female characters - the field commander of the unit is 2nd Lt. Alice Malkin - and there's a doggie, and some cats... (am softie. Don't tell! *g*).

* We're currently stove-less, so we've been exploring various "just add hot water" and/or microwavable products. Today's was Shirakiku brand "Fresh Japanese Style Sanukiya Udon." I admit to picking it up partly because I just liked the cartoon of two country dudes with their noodles (whoa, that came out way more filthy than I intended), and this review pretty much nails the experience (including the spongy veggie bits I didn't care for either; I can't comment on the openability of the packets, though, since I approached the bowl with scissors in hand). In a nutshell: good noodles, and the water doesn't actually have to be hot before you add it.

I am being a wuss about the things I ought to be doing... which translated into tackling the long-ass book meme busaikko tagged me with a couple eons ago. Standard disclaimer: I am mercurial and moody and absent-minded. My favorites change by the hour. And this questionnaire's questions are weighted so weirdly it's impossible to take it all that seriously, but you probably already knew that.

( Read more... )

In this morning's New York Times, there's an article about "The Drops of the Gods", a manga about wine that etrangere reviewed just last week in her LJ (French title: Le Gouttes de Dieu).

Why did the Times judge the series newsworthy? "Since coming out of nowhere four years ago, this 20-something Japanese would-be sommelier [the lead character] has quickly become the most influential voice in Asia’s wine markets. In Tokyo, wine sellers monitor his weekly pronouncements before adjusting their stocks accordingly."

I am having no luck getting past the first paragraph of any of the fics I've attempted to start the past couple of days, so I indulged in some surfing instead:

I saw on eBay that there was a copy of v2 in Spanish for sale for 8 Euros. Unfortunately, shipping to the US would run 35 Euros...

Here's a page with some panels from the French edition. The very last one is an example of why I've become keen on collecting different translations: in the English edition (Tokyopop), Ryo says "Bad kitty!" as he thumps Bikky on the head. In the French edition (Tonkam), it's "Take that!" I caught sight of a German edition on this side of the pond just now (Carlsen), so I'm looking forward to seeing how it lines up (or not) with the other two. Not to mention that it's funny seeing how different languages translate stuff like moans and shrieks and sneezes...

(Which reminds me, I had NO IDEA that "sneezefic" was a genre large enough to have a name, let alone a sizable archive. Fandom, you will never run out of ways to give me gigglefits.)

Sadly, it's looking like I was really lucky to find my copies of v1-3 in French when I did (from a Montreal bookstore (Bidonlivre) via AbeBooks, at reasonable prices). I've tried ordering v4-7 elsewhere only to receive out-of-stock notices a few days later, and last week there were a couple vendors listing those volumes at exorbitant prices (I may be obsessed, but I ain't that keen...) I don't see them on amazon.ca this week, though, so I'm wondering whether they gave up or got swept out.

There are French scanlations of "Like, Live, Love" and Dee's backstory!!! *flails happily* (It's the same group working through Haru wo Daiteita, so that's another Nitta-Matoh connection.)

A lead character in Matoh's Access bears a strong resemblance to Dee, and his co-star evokes a younger Ryo.

Nineveh-uk has posted another bit of Sayers-inspired brilliance, this time featuring Bunter and tissue-paper. Work-safe.

---

Marginalina linked to the Yuletide brainstorming post; I clicked. That crashing sound you hear in the background is my resolve to stay out of fests this year colliding with the possibility of prompting some good FAKE fic. More on that in a sec.

My original shortlist + runners-up is on page 7 of the comments therein, but I had a three-hour drive earlier today, which meant I had time to ponder what I really want. So the fandoms I currently plan to nominate are looking more like this:

1. FAKE - Sanami Matoh
2. Haru wo Daiteita - Youka Nitta
3. Copenhagen - Michael Frayn
4. Muppets
5. Chicago Manual of Style
6. Vicky Bliss - Elizabeth Peters

Some thoughts (in reverse order) on fic I'd like to see, whether via Yuletide or some other panfandom challenge or me-writing-it-myself-during-some-future-bout-of-insomnia (and yes, this is partly so I don't forget all this when it's time to write my "Dear Yuletide Santa" letter -- although it'll definitely need trimming so as not to scare whomever's assigned to me out of her or his gourd). I guess I should cut for spoilers for some of these...

( 6. Vicky Bliss )

5. CMOS - oh, the possibilities. CMOS/MLA bondage or hatesex, CMOS/APA, two CMOS rules together, one single CMOS rule... mwahahahahaha. I really am not kidding when I say that 17.169 would lend itself nicely to an extended exploration of UST.

4. Muppets. Heh. Coming up with potential guest-stars (which may or may not violate the "no crossovers" guideline - I'm just brainstorming here) was a welcome mental break. Possibilities, in rough order of preference:

anyone from Tenth Doctor Who or Torchwood (actor or character)

Cthulhu or Hastur from User-Friendly (and dudes, current storyline involves the Large Hadron Collider. Whee!)

anyone from Haru wo Daiteita

anyone from Neil Gaiman's Sandman series

Lord Peter Wimsey. Bonus for scenes showing Bunter dealing with the insanity

Irene Adler

Jonathan Papelbon

3. Copenhagen. More discussion and/or flashbacks among those involved.

2. Haru wo Daiteita: Yoshizumi or Shimizu gen; Iwaki/Katou PWP...

1. FAKE - some possibilities:

Ryo/Dee hurt/comfort

Dee and Jim Campbell friendship fic

Ryo's early twenties - answering questions from Dee, Carol, and/or Bikky about his time in the Army (if that's what he did), or Dee mulling over how Ryo's Army habits/skills show up in his current habits, or how Ryo met his bomb-making friend (if it wasn't via the Army)

Ryo and Dee discuss and compare their knowledge of bombs

Kai and/or Louise (second season) - what are their stories?

The 27th precinct heads to Bikky and Carol's wedding. Craziness and crises meet them there.

( second season spoiler )

( And now for the mini-manifesto... my personal preferences re: FAKE fic )
Ok, that's more than I meant to say... and I'm not done yet. Some other day. The to-post list also includes a delightful German translation of "Those I Can Save" (courtesy of LJ:incapability87), a couple of audiofics (once I stop coughing long enough to record them), some recs of FAKE fics (especially ones not in the usual archives), and the ever-floating raft of to-writes (once they're written, heh). But for now it's back to the comma mines. *hugs to all who wants 'em*

HP: I knew I was forgetting a fic when I posted last night! (Incoming company and 983 footnotes (in three languages and umpteen styles, no less), they make a gal scatterbrained. And the 983 is not a made-up number.): westernredcedar's Odeon Leicester Square: May 25, 1980, which is2K, NC-17, and has to do with Snape and Lupin watching The Empire Strikes Back. It is related to the dearsanta fic she wrote for me last year, Why Severus Snape Might Have to Shout 'Yoda' in the Midst of Battle (and one of these days I will rec something that isn't related to something I prompted, but like so many of you, I'm focused much more on my own IOUs than reading new work at the moment). "Odeon..." has dangerous!Lupin and protective-under-veneer-of-contempt!Snape, which are two of my biggest, fattest, come-smack-and-then-massage-me kinks, and nehalenia says it made her nipples hard. :-D

Fake (Sanami Matoh): A while back, lore posted a Big Post of Awesomeness about getting into yaoi, and she, iheartbowie, and geminia905 mentioned how much they liked this series, so when I saw several volumes at Myopic Books earlier this month, I decided to see for myself. ... and I ended up really, REALLY liking them, so I picked up another volume from a library reseller and then the remaining four from Amazon, which is having a "4-for-3" sale that happens to include various manga. (Also, FWIW, I saw a listing on eBay yesterday for all seven volumes that was under $10 at the time I was on.) And now I have RA-1 on order, and I've devoured scans of the first season extras/second season episodes and Like, Like, Love.

It's nowhere near a perfect series (the mangaka readily admits she gets a lot of things wrong), but it doesn't take itself too seriously to start with, and its mixture of hawtness, tenderness, violence, and zaniness has been what I've been in the mood for -- there's even a point where one character is lurking outside of another character's hotel room door and says, "Just you wait... we're going to bang a nice little M into this sorry excuse for a manga yet."

As lagniappe, from a translation geek POV, there are some old scanlations still floating around the Net, and it's fun for me to compare those with the licensed versions.

[Ack, called away. More in a bit!]